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ROUGH CUTS | ‘Prostituting’ government assistance

This one is for the books. A report posted on social media yesterday said that a policeman was shot and wounded by his wife, also a policewoman, when the victim was caught by the former having sex with the wife of a police major inside a car parked in the parking area of a mall in Cavite.

We salute to the guts of the policewoman for shooting her womanizing husband instead of just retreating to some corners of their residence and crying a river.

But we take our hat off – rather grudgingly – to the policeman husband for his extraordinary courage to do his promiscuous activity with a woman who is a wife of another police officer, a Police Major at that. And above all, we cannot find any adjective to describe the policeman’s and his paramour’s livedo level that they seem unable to find a more secret place for their tryst. Instead they did their thing right inside a car unmindful of people passing by.

Of course we assume that the car must be thickly tinted so that people outside cannot see what the lovers were doing inside.

And the police major’s wife? Well, the “itch” must already be unbearable that she agreed to do it in the most unexpected place.
Now, who’ll beat that?

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Now it is a happy time again for a certain select group of supposedly “disadvantaged and displaced” workers in Region XI.

According to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) in the Southern Mindanao Region, a total of P288 million in financial assistance under the agency’s integrated livelihood program as well as that of the TUPAD, is readied for the purpose.

DOLE XI Director Lawyer Randolph Pensoy said it himself during the regular media forum Habi at Kape at Abreeza Mall in Davao City held last April 24.

We say “happy time for a certain select group” of supposed beneficiaries because personally we were witness to how the “ayuda” program, specifically the TUPAD, is being “prostituted” by some leading and influential politicians and their subalterns at the barangay level.

We know for a fact that in the past, especially at the height of the campaign for the barangay elections, the favored candidates for barangay captains were able to access the TUPAD funds especially when the supposed 10-Day food-for-work arrangement was exempted from the election ban.

The “lucky” candidates were even allowed to “split” the ten days where one group of supposed beneficiaries is to render work. But in reality they did not work at all. In return they agreed to split their ten-day pay with another group of “beneficiaries” whose names are not included in the list submitted to the labor agency.

And how did the “lucky” barangay officials give proof to the DOLE that supposedly work was being done by the listed beneficiaries? Well, documentations were made by taking pictures of the supposed beneficiaries holding bolo, rake or shovel garbed in what can be considered a worker’s dress in one photo shoot and another clothes and color in another photo session.

Thereafter the TUPAD “beneficiaries” were given the schedule of the payout for the “work” they have done under the program.

Indeed the TUPAD fund utilization was a novel way of buying votes at that time for the “lucky” barangay officials. And it could still be come 2025 elections if DOLE remains subservient to its political patrons.

Of course the amount or money the “beneficiaries” received, even if this were half of what is supposed to be due them, is enough to make them happy even for just a week or two. After all, they did not actually render any service for it.

We can only hope that while the 2025 elections are still a year away, the TUPAD funds will be judiciously spent for the legitimate beneficiaries, and not just any Tom, Dick and Harry supporters of certain politicians both at the city, district or barangay level.

We hope as well that DOLE XI will be religious enough in validating the implementation of its Integrated Livelihood Program and the TUPAD so that some influential elected officials will not make a mockery of this well-intentioned government program.
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